Rivals star Aidan Turner has revealed that he threw himself into his racy scenes with friend and co-star Victoria Smurfit.
The Irish actor, 41, stars in the Disney+ series as journalist Declan O’Hara with Victoria, 50, playing his wife Maud.
Rivals has its fair share of raunch-packed scenes, with husband and wife Declan and Victoria also baring all.
But speaking to The Sunday Times, Aidan revealed that both he and Victoria had no qualms about the intimacy. ‘Victoria is such a legend, she’s a pal, I love her,’ he said.
‘We didn’t care, we just got straight involved,’ Aidan added, as he admitted Victoria wasn’t aware there were even going to be intimacy coordinators until the pair arrived on set.
Rivals star Aidan Turner revealed to The Sunday Times that he threw himself into his racy scenes with friend and co-star Victoria Smurfit
Rivals has its fair share of raunch-packed scenes, with husband and wife Declan and Maud (played by Aidan and Victoria) also baring all
The Poldark star said: ‘It’s technical but you do have to have a sense of fun about it as well, it can’t just be laborious.
‘It’s like a dance. There are 50 hairy men hanging around with cameras.’
His admission comes after it was revealed that younger writers on Rivals had rallied for the groping scene to be removed from the eight-part Disney adaptation.
It was a scene in Rivals that made viewers’ blood run cold when Dame Jilly Cooper’s dark-haired lothario Rupert Campbell Black put his hand up 19-year-old Taggie’s skirt.
Dominic Treadwell-Collins, the show’s executive producer and writer, said: ‘We talked a lot about the groping scene between Taggie and Rupert and whether we could show that on screen and, yes, we sat in the writer’s room and wriggled that out.
‘Some of the younger writers said, ‘You can’t keep that in because we would never want Rupert and Taggie to get together if he has groped her.’
‘And we said well he’s got to change, that’s got to stay in, it’s a comment on the 80s and these men.’
Rivals has since been widely praised for its loyal adaptation to Dame Jilly’s original storyline, not shying away from the more uncomfortable truths of the pre-MeToo 1980s.
The Irish actor, 41, stars in the Disney+ series as journalist Declan O’Hara with Victoria, 50, playing his wife Maud
But speaking to The Sunday Times, Aidan revealed that both he and Victoria had no qualms about the intimacy
‘Victoria is such a legend, she’s a pal, I love her,’ he said
Alex Hassell, 44, plays the Tory MP, Rupert Campbell Black, who grows fond of Taggie, played by 26-year-old Bella Maclean, the young daughter of fictional journalist Declan O’Hara, played by Poldark’s Aiden Turner.
Mr Treadwell-Collins, a writer for EastEnders, told the Rivals podcast: ‘In the writer’s room we made sure we had young writers and older writers and a mixture of sexualities and races and played around with it all.’
‘We can look at it like a period piece and celebrate the eighties but also judge them a bit.’
Commenting on the grope, Hassell told Grazia: ‘The show shines a light on how far we’ve come since then and it’s important for the arc of the character and his relationship with Taggie,’
‘Not to shy away from the fact that Rupert is a total s**t – if you stop at episode two, he’s just an arsehole, but that’s where he has to come back from.’
Fans have begged Disney + for a second season after the show ended on a cliffhanger with one character’s life left hanging in the balance.
Rivals has since been widely praised for its loyal adaptation to Dame Jilly’s original storyline, not shying away from the more uncomfortable truths of the pre-MeToo 1980s
A number of fans have fallen in love with the series and admitted binging all eight episodes in a matter of days.
‘Oh my. Guess there’s gonna be a season 2 of Rivals. they stayed so faithful to the book, I wasn’t expecting that ending!’: ‘Just watched Rivals and oh my god, it is so good. Not normally my sort of thing but I’ve been hooked. I need a season 2’.
The show has been branded a ‘bonkbuster’ and Disney’s sexiest ever series, earning a whopping 93% on the Tomatometer.
The Mail’s Jane Fryer gave the eight-part series five stars and revealed the show ‘kicks off with so much sex and swearing and nudity and ridiculously brilliant, tongue-in-cheek fun’ that viewers won’t want to tear their eyes away.